Alonso leads soaked first session in Spa

Fernando Alonso topped the first practice session for the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend, but it was the weather that made the most news today. The track was already saturated, then more heavy rain made the track very difficult to drive. Because of this, no driver got below the two-minute mark.

Fernando Alonso in FP1 at Spa today

Alonso’s best time, a 2.00.797, was 0.8 seconds faster than Lewis Hamilton in 2nd place, although he only went out for 7 laps. Robert Kubica was 3rd for Reanult, running their new F-duct. The Red Bulls of Vettel and Webber were 4th and 7th. Adrian Sutil was 5th while Jenson Button was 6th, having done only 6 laps.

Rubens Barrichello, celebrating his 300th Grand Prix entry with a special message on the car, was 9th behind Kamui Kobayashi. Michael Schumacher completed the top 10. Felipe Massa was a disappointing 11th, 2.8 seconds slower than his team-mate.

Vitaly Petrov struggled in 17th, while Sebastien Buemi was only 0.017 seconds faster than Timo Glock, although he was suffering gearbox trouble throughout the session, and only did 6 laps. Behind Glock in 19th was Lucas di Grassi. Trulli and Kovalainen were off the pace in 21st and 23rd. Meanwhile, Sakon Yamamoto was last, 1o seconds slower than Alonso, and an unbelievable 2.8 seconds off Bruno Senna’s time.